


The Unanswerable Question

by KatieGallifrey



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, I Love You Scene (Sherlock: The Final Problem), Other, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Post-The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24153295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieGallifrey/pseuds/KatieGallifrey
Summary: Two weeks after the events of "The Final Problem", Molly Hooper comes to Baker Street to babysit Rosie Watson and Sherlock Holmes is faced with the most important question of his life.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper
Comments: 12
Kudos: 126





	The Unanswerable Question

John grabbed a stack of papers from his desk, shoved them into his briefcase, and struggled with the latch. “Molly will be here at half past the hour, but until then you’re on your own with Rosie.” He clicked the briefcase shut and picked up his suit jacket. “Mrs. Hudson will lend a hand, in a pinch, if you can rouse her…”

Sherlock nodded imperceptibly as he stared into the microscope on the kitchen table. 

John inclined his head toward the fair-haired child chattering in her highchair. “If any of that’s sensitive, remember she can climb now.”

“Good,” Sherlock said, slowly, as he squeezed a dropper-full of liquid onto a slide.

“No, not good. Sherlock, are you getting any of this?” John’s hands tightened on the handle of his briefcase.

Sherlock turned his head, snapping his eyes to attention like a working greyhound, and taking in his small, gray friend’s expression and clenched fingers. “Molly’s coming, don’t kill the baby in the next hour, Mrs. Hudson is sleeping off something particularly strong, and you’ll be back after dark. If I hadn’t heard you, I could have deduced it.” He turned back to his study with an air of boredom. “Good luck on your date.”

John bit back his words a moment as he adjusted his suit jacket. “For the last time, Sherlock, it’s not a date.”

Sherlock tipped his head doubtfully. 

“It’s just a formal dinner with a potential new colleague. The practice has asked me to help her feel welcome.”

Sherlock grunted, and John shared an exasperated look with the only other sensible person in the room and she only banged her highchair tray.

“Since we’re being impertinent, I’ll ask you one thing… Do you love Molly Hooper? Hmm?”

Sherlock adjusted the magnification on the microscope. “Don’t be silly, John.”

“Then God help you, you idiot.” With that, John finally left the flat to the chemist and the baby.

A giggling babble broke into Sherlock’s thoughts and he turned, eyebrows drawn in exasperated horror, to the little girl crawling toward him. 

“Not again, Watson.” He picked her up, and placed her in the highchair, gluing her in with a look.

The next time, she peered up at him from the floor near his chair, and the next after that, she nearly upset a tray of evidence. Sherlock swung her up on his shoulder and turned to deposit her in the highchair, but Rosie held on tight to a fistful of his hair.

“Hello.”

He spun at the sound of Molly’s voice. The last time he’d heard it, she’d almost died. “Hello, Molly. Come to get Watson out of my hair, I see.” He untangled the child’s fingers from his hair and passed her over.

“Right. Good.” Molly swallowed and settled the baby on her hip. 

The past two weeks had driven a silence between them, and any breaking of it seemed to pain them both.

Sherlock sat down at the table again and murmured, “Back to these then. Mycroft promised me a seat in Parliament if I don’t deliver.”

The sounds from the sitting room faded into the background, and he buried himself in the case. Information, questions, figures all flew through his mind and fit together in most of a puzzle. These pieces of evidence on loan from Scotland Yard properly interpreted could complete his own deductions.

“Sherlock, your phone,” Molly said.

“It’s Lestrade, don’t answer it.”

The phone continued to ring and he slipped into his mind palace to escape it, but another phone rang more insistently there. Molly ignored it, and his heart raced as she continued to prepare her tea. 

“Why isn’t she answering her phone?” The answer was a blur. “But it’s me calling.”

The call went to voicemail, and Eurus called again.

“Parliament, Sherlock,” Mycroft stared disapprovingly. 

Sherlock pushed his brother aside, focusing on Molly’s face. Waiting for what she would say next. 

“Say it. Say it like you mean it.”

And he had. He’d said it twice just to be sure. Anything to save Molly Hooper’s life.

He jerked himself back to reality and glanced from the microscope to the sitting room where she laughed, very much real, very much alive, and very much at home with little Watson. John’s earlier question, silly as it was put to a man without a heart, refused to leave his mind.

Light from the windows seeped in and fell on the creases in the sleeves of Molly’s pink cotton blouse, made by the lab coat she’d doubtless worn all day. Her hands built a tower of blocks even as her thick, honey braid brushed the top of it. 

Her eyes smiled down as the baby knocked over the tower, and her nose sat at a perfect, scooped angle above her smiling mouth. He found himself studying the latter longer than deductions required, but he quickly recanted when she looked up. 

“Sorry,” she said, those lips twisting nervously. “Rosie will be going to sleep soon, and it will be quiet.”

“It’s all right. You’re the best company she’s had in a while.” Sherlock nodded for emphasis and held very tightly to the bag of evidence he was opening.

Molly and baby Watson’s voices disappeared down the hall. 

He fit the new information into his picture of the case and mentally looked at it from all angles.

Molly returned to the sitting room and browsed John’s shelves before selecting a criminally outdated medical journal and settling into the chair facing the kitchen. A stab of irritation rushed through him until he allowed himself to look at her. 

Her head was tilted sideways, cheek against the side of the chair and legs tucked under her in the perfect picture of comfort. She always looked so at ease… until he spoke to her. 

Guilt replaced his irritation at her use of the chair, and he leaned back from the microscope, tapping his fingers in thought. He should at least try to be kind. Act human. 

“Molly. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Oh.” She looked at him, searching his face. “Yes, thank you.”

Mrs. Hudson wouldn’t wake up for another seventeen minutes, so he’d have to make it himself. He stirred it up, recalling that he didn’t know how she took her tea. Coffee, he knew, but not tea.

“There you are. Three lumps. Is that enough?”

She laughed brightly and the sound warmed him. “Yes, thank you.” She stood up and came over to take the steaming teacup from him. 

He watched as she took a sip then stared into its depths. “Sherlock.”

Her voice shook, and the meaning behind that single word hit him full force.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“John told me it was an emergency, but still…” She clenched her teeth. “You’re clever enough to have found another way.”

“I know.” He stared into his own mixture of tea, cream, and six sugar lumps.

“Sherlock Holmes, if you say that phrase one more time, I will slap you.”

He snapped his eyes to her face. “Go ahead. I know exactly how many times I’ve hurt you--I’ve had a long time to think about it--and I know this last was the worst.”

He set down his tea and avoided her angry, nearly crying gaze. “John was right; it was an emergency. In that moment, all I could think was that Molly Hooper should not die, absolutely could not die, and that I would do anything to save your life. But that’s no excuse for how I treated you, and I am deeply sorry for everything.”

Molly smiled slightly into her tea. “Are you sorry for saying it?”

The question again. Something in the last hour, in the retelling of the worst moment of his life, in her brown eyes looking up at him with all the love of ten years fitted together into the solution of this case and the answer was clear. He stepped forward.

His hand slipped to the side of her face, a face so small the tips of his fingers buried themselves in her hair, and her hand holding the teacup shook. He took it from her and set it on the counter then stepped even closer.

“No,” he smiled down at her, “you know me. I never apologize for telling the truth.”

And Sherlock Holmes kissed Molly Hooper. 

Tentative at first, until she answered and it grew into a celebration. He pulled her into a tight hug, and she rested her forehead against his shoulder. 

“I think I hear Watson waking up,” he said, resting his chin on the top of her head. 

She laughed. “Why do you call her that?”

“I don’t know. Training her to be my apprentice, I suppose. ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’ has a better ring to it than ‘Rosie’.”

She laughed again, then pulled back to look at him. “Or maybe it’s because ‘Rosemary’ reminds you too much of her mother.”

A sadness entered him and he took both her hands in his. “Excellent deduction. You know me better than anyone.” He looked loathingly at the microscope. “Except maybe Mycroft. He really will send me to Parliament if I don’t finish up.”

“You wouldn’t last an hour.” Molly grinned and drained her tea as he laughed. She set the empty cup back on the counter and turned to him. “Can I help?”

He kissed her again before vowing to focus completely on his work. “Please.”

Mrs. Hudson screamed when she heard the news, and Lestrade’s mouth set a new personal record of time spent hanging open. Mycroft just smirked knowingly. John threatened to kill Sherlock if this was another cruel trick, but he was reassured when a while later 221 B Baker Street successfully welcomed home the new Mrs. Molly Holmes. Many years afterward there was a house in the countryside with beehives and two residents who occasionally argued about chemistry and loved each other unconditionally. 

The question had been answered. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please note, some phrases said in Sherlock's mind palace flashback to actual lines used on the show.
> 
> Thanks to Perry and Kaitlyn for beta-reading!


End file.
